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Ballade No 4 in F minor, Op 52

Introduction

Together with the Barcarolle, the Polonaise-Fantaisie, and the second and third sonatas, the Fourth Ballade represents the summit of Chopin’s art. The tentative start is haunting and suggestive and was once beautifully described by the critic Joan Chissell as bringing the same sense of wonder that a blind person, if granted the gift of sight, might feel on discovering the world’s beauty for the first time. The principal, highly Slavonic theme is closely related to the first of Chopin’s Trois Nouvelles Études (1839), the second of the opus 25 Études and surely provided an inspiration for Liszt’s La Leggierezza (1848; all four works are in the key of F minor). It returns twice bejewelled, and the second subject’s appearance in B flat and the return of the opening in A flat never disrupt the music’s self-generating momentum. An aerial cadenza and a canonic treatment of the first subject bear eloquent witness to Chopin’s increasing veneration for Bach, and the build-up and the pianissimo chords announcing a coda of the most fiery intricacy are as remarkable as anything in Chopin. They remind us simultaneously of his capacity for large-scale heroics and for the most intimate and hauntingly distinctive confidences.

Recordings

'Lovely playing which I enjoyed from first note to last for its poetry and passion as well as seemingly effortless keyboard fluency and command' (Gram ...'The Scherzo is as light as gossamer and the finale has both a heroic sense of struggle and passages of the most delicate filigree. Demidenko keeps yo ...» More

'This is astonishing piano playing and Chopin interpretation, at its very best, fully measuresup to the greatness of these pieces. And to their freshn ...'In the use of words like sensational, extraordinary, phenomenal, etc., critics have to be sparing, at risk of their credibility. But these adjectives ...» More

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. This monumental recording project—first instigated by t ...» More

'Razor blades, little pills and big pianos' explores the emotive landscape that we call 'life'. This debut recording is somewhat of a biographical expression of James Rhodes’s complex and unorthodox journey. It was Bach, Beethoven and Chopin; not ...» More